Budget 2021 Part 8: Staffing Changes
Back in September 10th, 2020, the City Auditor presented a report to the Audit Committee on the number of management Full Time Employees and the management span of control. The report had reviewed a three-year period from 2017-2019 with findings discovering a significant increase (21%) in the number of manager and supervisor full time employees and narrowing of span of control. With this information and budget deliberations underway, it was determined that there was an additional management layer of nonunion positions that could be moved to union and vacant positions that should be eliminated rather than laying employees off.
I made a motion at the Audit Committee meeting to look at two scenarios to reduce middle management (a 5% reduction and a 10% reduction). I felt this was important because we are in a challenging economic time and that 21% increase is hard to justify.
At the December 9th 2020 City Council meeting, a presentation from City Administration was presented to outline the staffing changes and to explain how they have taken action as requested in the motion I made.
The workforce impacts were outlined as follows.
In the Supervisor Reduction Exercise Update there were 118.5 supervisor Full Time Equivalents/Employees identified for reduction.
The jurisdictional impacts of proposed supervisor reductions are 69 management and 49.5 union FTEs. This represented an overall supervisor reduction of
8.7% senior management
5.1% middle management
6.8% front-line supervisors
As of September 30, the City of Edmonton had 131 permanent vacant supervisor full time employees/equivalents. A detailed review of vacancies has confirmed:
45 FTEs are held for current employees
14 FTEs have been filled
30 FTEs have been identified for elimination
42 supervisor FTEs are currently vacant
10 are critical and active in a HR process
32 are paused pending the outcome of budget deliberations and/or as a result of COVID-19 service impacts.
The 2021 Budget proposed a reduction of 347.2 FTEs. As of December 1, 2020:
There were 313.7 FTEs identified for reduction
The remaining balance will be achieve via corporate realignment initiatives
There are a number of workforce strategies used to minimize the impact to city employees:
67.6% of FTEs to be reduced are vacant
32.4% FTEs to be reduced will impact current employees
Through tools such as vacancy management, reduction in FTEs and workforce transition programs, we were able to help reduce the budget in order to achieve no tax increase for the first time in 24 years.
Part 1 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget2021part1/
Part 2 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-2-expense-reductions/
Part 3 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-3-facility-closures/
Part 4 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-4-funding-to-partners/
Part 5 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-5-increased-revenue-and-recoveries/
Part 6 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-6-service-level-reductions/
Part 7 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-workforce-strategies/
Part 8 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-8-staffing-changes/
Part 9 https://www.andrewknack.com/budget-2021-part-9-conclusion/
